SHEBOYGAN - The year is 1967 and the place is Chicago. It is Jan Nelson’s wedding day. In the crowd of lively well-wishers and guests is her friend David Johnson, the kind boy from her college town who she remembers always brought her pizza.

“He was a really nice guy. He’d go pick up pizzas for the girls in the dorm,” she recalled. He even drove her home to Illinois when she needed a ride. Jan’s boyfriend Gary also stayed over at David’s house once.

David had just returned from three years in the army and was happy to be at the wedding of his two friends Jan and Gary from his time in a small Iowa town.

“She went to a Catholic girls school in Clinton, Iowa. I was one of the local boys,” he said of how the two first met.

He added with a cheeky grin: “If you want a date, where would you go? To a Catholic girls school.”

The three were good friends, so when it came time for Jan and Gary to marry, David was a guest.

Jan Nelson in 1966.(Photo: Courtesy of Jan Nelson)

Following the wedding, though, David disappeared from Jan and Gary’s lives.

“He said the reason I didn’t see him again is because he knew I was happy and he didn’t need to be in my life any longer,” Jan said.

Flash forward 35 years. It’s late 2002. David and his wife Judi have lived in the Madison area for a long time but make frequent trips to Chicago. On one of these trips, he and his wife think to check on David’s old friend Jan.

They heard that her husband had passed a few months earlier and hoped to let her know that if she wanted to see some familiar faces, they loved coming to the area.

David Johnson in 1966 right after returning from three years in the army.(Photo: Courtesy of Jan Nelson)

They couldn’t find Jan, but David found her brother’s number and gave him a call.

“I said, ‘I’ll just give you my name and phone number and if she wants to call, my wife and I would like to see somebody there locally when we come,’” David said.

Jan’s brother Jay delivered on his promise to give his sister their number, but Jan never used it. Instead she stuck it on her refrigerator and it quickly got buried under calendars and photos.

She recalled the moment she found the number again, years after she stuck it on her refrigerator.

Interestingly, it came after a reunion between the two.

“When I was getting ready to move, David was at my house and he was helping me pack up and he was in another room,” she said. “I go, ‘David, I just found your phone number on the refrigerator! Maybe I should call you.’”

It's clear that the two love to playfully spar with sarcastic remarks.

A reunion

Jan does remember telling one of her daughters about her old friend who was kind enough to reach out.

It's 2007. Jan’s daughter is also living in the Madison area and is reading the paper. She sees the obituary of someone’s wife and recognizes the widower as David. Naturally, she tells her mother.

“I wasn’t 100 percent sure it was him,” Jan said. However, she looked him up and wrote him a sympathy card anyway.

“I knew how it was to lose your spouse totally unplanned," she said. "I was 56 when my husband died and I just knew how much it meant to me if somebody sent me a card or said ‘Gee, I’m sorry. I’m thinking about you.'"

Luckily, it was the right David.

“And then I answered her,” David said.

“Crazy fool that he was,” Jan teased.

When he called her up, Jan worried he would have forgotten who she was at that point.

“She says, ‘Are you sure you remember me?' and I said, ‘You had the frizzy hair and the smile,’” David recalls.

Thus began what the two characterized as a long distance friendship. They leaned on each other and became close due to their shared past, love of traveling and mutually processing the grief that comes from losing someone you love.

By 2012, Jan had moved from Chicago to Plymouth to be closer to her four children.

Their friendship was changed dramatically with a simple text a little over four years ago.

“One day he sent me a text message with a picture and he says, ‘I think you’re going to like what I did.’ And it was a 'for sale' sign in front of his house,” Jan said.

David assumed that Jan would he thrilled. He thought Jan would want him to move in with her and change the dynamic of their relationship.

Suddenly David was out of a house and a friend who said the only way to move in was if they got married.

“He called himself homeless. What did you say? 'A hobo-sexual,'” Jan recalled through laughs.

Luckily, Jan’s daughter came through and said David could move in with her and her family if he wanted--that he didn’t have to marry her mother just yet.

“I had an option,” David said.

However, in the end, David decided that he loved Jan and accepted the terms of her ultimatum.

The pair got married in February of 2014. Jan wore a gold colored dress and the pair sang “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” while going up the aisle.

They’ve been incredibly happy ever since.

Jan and David on their wedding day, February of 2014.(Photo: Courtesy of Jan Nelson)

“He did have an option, but he chose me,” Jan said smugly.

“And now we’re married, but not friends anymore,” David joked.

During a recent interview on a quiet afternoon by the Sheboygan riverfront, they joked and laughed of their shared experiences. Jan was a cytologist (she studied cells and traveled the world looking at cells to determine if they were malignant) and David worked in the trucking industry (he managed the global logistics of trucks), but the two are now retired and spend their time seeing the world.

“We found that we both love to travel,” Jan said.

The pair have been to multiple countries together, including Egypt, France, Spain, Turkey, Denmark and Romania.

“David has no problem saying, ‘I feel like having dinner and taking a train somewhere.’ So we were in Germany and we just got on the train and went out,” she said. “He’s braver than I would be by myself.”

Their upcoming trips just this year include France, Italy and Austria.

Their friends and families have also blended well.

“My friends have accepted her and her friends have accepted me,” David said. “We haven’t had to stop having friends because we got married.”

David has two children and his son often goes camping with Jan’s children. “They’re friends,” Jan said. "They don’t even invite us."

“We don’t want to go with them either,” David said.

“I do!” Jan exclaimed. “I want to go. I like to camp.”

Jan also spoke of the bond between her 12-year-old granddaughter, Annie, and David.

When asked why she fell for David, Jan spoke of his kindness towards everyone and said that kindness is the requirement for a relationship.

“Watching him be kind to other people, and he doesn’t always want them to know it’s him,” she said. “If he has tons of money or is extremely good looking or outgoing or whatever, but he isn’t kind, then what do you have?”

Within minutes of meeting them, it's clear the pair laugh a lot. David’s sarcasm came off throughout the interview and Jan giggled despite all the teasing.

“He’s a joker,” she said. “He’s always joking.”

David’s advice for others is to not focus on finding your soulmate or best friend.

“That love-lust doesn’t last forever,” he said. Rather, he said young people should focus on finding a person who is genuinely kind to others, has a similar spirit and the same goals in life.

“I’m not saying she’s my best friend either,” David said, gesturing to Jan.

Jan, incredulous, asked, “So who’s your best friend? The cat?”

“Yeah, my cat."

If you think you have an interesting love story or know a couple with an interesting love story, let us know. Lowkey Lovesick is written by Marina Affo. She can be contacted at maffo@sheboyganpress.com or on twitter @marina_affo.